Former child soldiers in war-torn Somalia are being held in prison conditions in foreign-funded camps, "punishing" rather than rehabilitating them, the top U.N. children's envoy said Thursday.

Leila Zerrougui, U.N. envoy for children and armed conflict, said former child soldiers -- who foreign donors were funding to rehabilitate their return to society -- were effectively being locked up without trial and denied visits from their family.

Somali government and African forces battled a powerful warlord in Mogadishu Friday, with security forces then storming a major radio station critical of the fighting and arresting journalists.

Witnesses reported at least five dead in a gun battle lasting several hours, after the army backed by African Union (AU) troops launched a pre-dawn assault on the base of warlord Ahmed Dai in a bid to disarm his militia.

U.N. Security Council ambassadors met Somalia's president Wednesday under heavy security in the war-ravaged capital Mogadishu, ahead of a fresh military push against Islamist fighters.

The visit comes amid growing warnings of a humanitarian crisis in Somalia, three years after more than 250,000 people, half of them children, died in a devastating famine.

The Italian navy said Monday it had rescued more than 2,000 migrants over the weekend from boats in the Mediterranean, bringing the number it has brought ashore this year to nearly 100,000.

It said the latest arrivals included 94 migrants crammed into a 30-meter (98-foot) long sailing boat intercepted off the coast of Calabria by the coast guard, which arrested three Turkish men on board on suspicion of human trafficking.

Somalia's hardline Islamists said they fought intense battles Saturday with government and African Union troops in the central Hiran region that left 18 people dead on both sides.

Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told Agence France Presse the deaths occurred after the group's fighters attacked a base of the AU force in Buloburde town, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu.

Somalia's government begged for help Tuesday, warning the war-torn nation once again faced a hunger and drought catastrophe three years after famine killed more than a quarter of a million people.

"Drought has already reached several regions in Somalia," the government said in a statement, warning that "it anticipates that the situation will continue to deteriorate".

Somalia's al-Qaida-linked Shebab said they had carried out a car bombing that killed a senior police chief in the north of the war-torn country Monday, the latest in a string of attacks.

"With the blessing of Allah, the mujahedeen have carried out a successful operation targeting senior apostate officials," Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said in a statement, boasting that three other policemen also died in the blast.

Three suspected Shebab Islamic militants were executed by firing squad in Mogadishu on Sunday, Somali police said.

All three had been condemned to death for murder, police chief Abdi Mohamed told AFP, with one of the men allegedly taking part in an assault on the presidential palace last month.

Somalia's Shebab insurgents said they had assassinated a lawmaker in Mogadishu as he left prayers at a mosque on Friday, the fifth MP killed this year in a string of attacks.

"This was a legitimate target, and he was killed on the orders of Allah," Shebab spokesman  Abdiaziz Abu Musab told Agence France-Presse, adding that the al-Qaida-linked insurgents were "preparing to kill all the other MPs."

Over 350,000 people in Somalia's war-ravaged capital are in acute need of food aid as government and charities struggle to cope, the U.N. warned Saturday, with other cities also in crisis.

"The food security situation has worsened as early warnings highlight drought conditions in parts of Somalia," a report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.